Bildungsreise

(647 words)

A Bildungsreise was a form and convention of travel that became increasingly important in Western Europe from the 17th century on; scholars have generally characterized it as “bourgeois” [5]. Given the pragmatic multifunctionality of lengthy expensive stays abroad, it represented a cultural archetype realized more in published Reiseberichten (Travel literature) and especially in the Bildungsroma​n than in actual travel.

The term denotes the phenomenon of an increasingly individualized form of a long stay abroad, which was cultivated by the upper so…